Shoutout to many users posting trip reports for "off the beaten" track places, including kidz won't hike and Birb! To give back to the community, here is my trip report in which I inadvertently advance the "state of the art" knowledge on the "trail", or rather, the absolute absence of trail or passage, deep inside the Umtanum Creek Canyon.

My plan was to do a loop hike, and you can see the loop as executed in one of the pictures of my route below. I would start at Umtanum Recreation Site, take the Vista trail to climb out onto the Umtanum Ridge Crest, then go west along the ridge, then go off-trail and drop into the Umtanum Creek Canyon, then take the "trail" that I saw on the map via the canyon back to the trailhead.

The first and middle parts of the trip went great - Vista trail up the crest was awesome, I loved the views from the top, and I loved the ridge hike as well. Sure, it was a road walk, but still, I found it so relaxing to walk the ridge, have awesome views along both sides, and have almost completely solitude (there were 2 folks in a buggy at some point but that was it in terms of seeing anyone). I won't go much into detail here since there are many trip reports on this part.

Then as the route shows, I went off-trail/road and descended into the Umtanum Creek Canyon. Most of the descent was fun and enjoyable, I had no problems and I did not feel unsafe at any point. I actually enjoyed this because it gave me a feeling of even more being "out there". I dreamed about pitching a tent here or there and imagining the solitude.

The final part of descent into the Umtanum Creek Canyon was a bit more gnarly, because the contributing canyon walls started narrowing around the tiny creek bed that I was going through, and the creek bed itself was full of bushes. But I had expected this segment to have some bushwhacking because I could see the foliage from the satellite and I've bushwhacked through creekbeds surrounded by narrow slopes before.

The problem was that once I dropped into the Umtanum Creek Canyon, I had expected that I would simply cruise out on the "trail" which I saw on the map. I did check out trip reports for Umtanum Ridge Crest in advance of the trip, but not for Umtanum Creek Canyon Trail. The point at which I dropped into the canyon is 3.8 mi from the trailhead. Well, had I checked out the trip reports for the Canyon trail, I would have seen people writing "the trail disappears/becomes overgrown/difficult at 1.5 mi", i.e. more than 2 full miles before the point at which I dropped into the canyon. 

I did not know that of course, I was naively trying to find a trail, then I figured out that there was in fact no trail at the point at which I dropped in. I had to bushwhack through the creek bed with a lot of dense bushes and/or scramble on the rocks on the sides interchangeably, and honestly, I don't recommend anyone else doing this. It's not that it was dangerous, it wasn't, the problem was that it was 3:30PM on 31 October and I was progressing at a glacial pace due to having to do foot by foot route finding and often having to backtrack, not the 20 minutes/mile pace I was planning on. I tried many things, including a somewhat desperate idea at one point of walking in the creek itself, simply because it has no foliage inside. But eventually I decided to scramble up on one side of the canyon, sometimes steep, but having no foliage, and at some point I found what I thought looked like a very overgrown trail. As I followed it, it became more and more established, and eventually I was pretty confident this was a trail at some point in the past, and gladly followed it out, until it became well defined and a decent regular trail, probably around the 1.5 mi from the trailhead point.

So anyway, that's it, the bottom line is that the trail is non-existent deeper inside the canyon. I do think it's still a fun trip if that's what you're expecting, are planning for it time-wise, and have experience bushwhacking and scrambling. I think had I not had the time issue on my hands and had I come into the canyon from the trailhead, knowing that I can always backtrack the way I came (instead of not knowing what lies ahead of me as was my case), I'd quite enjoy the route finding!

Fall colors were beautiful along the trail. When we arrived at the TH, there were a few drops of light rain, but they soon abated and we had a pleasant meander for a little over a mile. We saw very few people walking the trail. Aspen were past their prime, but many were still dressed in their fall colors. We saw 3 apple trees laden with apples for the deer to enjoy as the apples fall to the ground. 

Arrived after a day spent at Ancient Lakes and although it was a blue bird fall day, I knew that the light starting at 3pm in a canyon would be subpar. So I walked along for a few kms (personally I think the colors are "just" past peak) and then decided to b-line out of the canyon towards the Umtanum Ridge Road in order to return via the vista trail. 

I'm sure it's been done plenty of times before but it was very much a spur of the moment idea for me, and considering I just spent 4 out of the last 5 months on crutches, I'm glad it worked and was very much worth the gamble.

I left the canyon around here 46.86321, -120.52522 and went up slightly climbers left to the mini ridge and then continued up towards the top. On the way up there was another old minor road that cut along the hill around here, 46.85072, -120.53289. It eventually hit the vista trail but the top was way nicer. I saw 4 deer, a hawk and and eagle, twas a good day.

Used WTA trail description and two GPS trail apps to stay on course. Even then had to backtrack.  Very overgrown in places.  Glad we had long pants and long sleeves. We lost interest in bushwacking at about 2 miles and turned around. Beautiful fall colors with many shades of gold. Saw a herd of elk climbing up the canyon.  

The first 1.5 miles of this trail are fairly easy to follow, though you have to go through a buzzing tunnel of trees filled with bees. The canyon walls and scenery are stunning. After that the trail is significantly overgrown and difficult to follow. Even with the blue dot 🔵 on AllTrails, the downed trees and overgrowth are intense and made it hard to follow. It was a mistake to wear shorts. There were no ticks but my legs are completely covered in scratches from thorns, brush & tree branches. At 3 miles in the trail goes through a rock slide area and my footing wouldn’t hold. I was carried to the bottom creek and it took everything I had to get to the other side. Then I lost the trail again and decided that I had enough so I turned around and got whipped by a million thorns, bushes and branches on the way back. I saw 2 snakes but they were not rattlers. I warned some people headed that way and I hope they had a better experience than me.